Project MUSE®: Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural.daily12026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 1 (2012) through current issueLatest Articles: Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the PreternaturalTWOProject MUSE®Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural2161-21882161-2196Latest articles in Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Introduction
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979697
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Water is an enigmatic element for humans. In many literary, mythological, and folkloric systems of knowledge, it is habitually imbued with power and significance. This often occurs in a positive sense, as water is naturally associated as a life-giving and rejuvenating substance, without which we cannot survive. The restorative nature of water is echoed, for instance, in religious contexts, with miracles and the purification of the body and soul. One such example can be observed in its use as one ingredient of “St. Thomas’ Waters,” purported to have possessed healing properties that cured all afflictions after imbuing the water with the blood of the twelfth-century Anglican saint and martyr Thomas Becket (Jordan
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562/image/coversmallIntroduction2026-01-10text/htmlen-USIntroduction2026-01-102026TWOProject MUSE®200662026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-10Water-Based Divination in Greco-Roman Egypt: New Insights from the Greek Magical Papyri
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979698
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In Greco-Roman Egypt, divination (μαντική) was a legitimate means to discover information regarding the past, present, or future that would be otherwise inaccessible to the inquirer (Addey 2021: 1). Situated culturally in the overlap between religion and magic, divination was a broad practice that encompassed the use of many versatile materials and procedures.1 As highlighted by Johnston, the examination of this phenomenon allows scholars to “glimpse not only the rules that participants have developed for its engagement, but also the rules by which participants assume (or hope) that the world works” (Johnston and Struck 2005: 10–11). When considered through the lens of materiality, the practice of divination
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562/image/coversmallWater-Based Divination in Greco-Roman Egypt: New Insights from the Greek Magical Papyri2026-01-10text/htmlen-USWater-Based Divination in Greco-Roman Egypt: New Insights from the Greek Magical Papyri2026-01-102026TWOProject MUSE®957792026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-10The Malevolent Alternate World of Fog in Statius’s Thebaid
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979699
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Fog in the epic Thebaid of the first-century CE Roman poet Statius creates a malevolent otherworld. Such a representation is not unique to the Thebaid, with other Greek and Roman authors similarly using fog to negatively transform a space, but the extent to which it occurs in the Thebaid is exceptional. Statius utilizes fog (Latin caligo, nebula and nubes) across the work to represent the changes to a space altered by nefas (“impiety”). From the poem’s outset, Tisiphone, one of the three Furies, uses her “customary mist” at the behest of Oedipus to pollute his own house, the house of Cadmus. This is the catalyst for the poem’s subject: the destruction of the Theban royal family and its fallout through the war
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562/image/coversmallThe Malevolent Alternate World of Fog in Statius’s Thebaid2026-01-10text/htmlen-USThe Malevolent Alternate World of Fog in Statius’s Thebaid2026-01-102026TWOProject MUSE®1156902026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-10The River of Fire in the Byzantine Romance Velthandros
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979700
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Rooted in pagan and biblical traditions of water as a catalyst of purification and renewal, visual and textual waterscapes pervade the millennial empire of Byzantium.1 In the imperial capital, Constantinople, this cultural theme is especially prominent. Church art and hymns are replete with water imagery such as ornate baptisteries, the rivers of Eden, or the Virgin Mary depicted as a wellspring of life. Other waterworks include public cisterns, aqueducts, fountains, and the lush gardens and parks irrigated by those sources.2 The motif extends into literary texts, particularly in twelve extant stories of romantic love known as Byzantine “novels” and “romances.”A brief overview of these novels and romances provides
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562/image/coversmallThe River of Fire in the Byzantine Romance Velthandros2026-01-10text/htmlen-USThe River of Fire in the Byzantine Romance Velthandros2026-01-102026TWOProject MUSE®1310882026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-10Aquatic Birds and the Liminality of the Sea in Greco-Roman Mythology
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979701
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The Greeks and Romans were adept sailors and lived largely in proximity to the sea. Yet, from the Homeric and Hesiodic poems onward, the sea is characterized as an unfathomable abyss, attendant to Hades, where unlucky humans drown and their bodies are lost forever (Beaulieu 2016: 21–58). This fear of the sea was prompted by ancient peoples’ experience of innumerable storms, shipwrecks, and other catastrophes, as well as their belief that individuals whose bodies were left unburied in the sea could not access the afterlife (Pearce 1983). Yet, mythology and folklore counteract this stark reality by offering stories of sailors surviving misfortune at sea and emerging transformed by their experiences, which frequently
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562/image/coversmallAquatic Birds and the Liminality of the Sea in Greco-Roman Mythology2026-01-10text/htmlen-USAquatic Birds and the Liminality of the Sea in Greco-Roman Mythology2026-01-102026TWOProject MUSE®1257622026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-10Nature as a Source of Inspiration for the Supernatural: The Mediterranean Moray and Serpentine Sea Monsters
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979702
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The notion that monsters and other fear-evoking creatures dwelt in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea was widespread in Greco-Roman antiquity, with evidence from oral tradition preserved in ancient Greek and Roman art and literature of that era.1 And, while these sea monsters firmly belonged to the supernatural sphere, it is beyond doubt that art and literature alike were inspired by animals of the real world.Modern researchers have found these monsters no less fascinating than the ancient artists and authors, as mirrored in the rich body of scholarship on sea monsters in Greco-Roman culture. In these studies, various animals and fossils—ranging from whales, sharks, and giant oarfish to skeletal remains of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562/image/coversmallNature as a Source of Inspiration for the Supernatural: The Mediterranean Moray and Serpentine Sea Monsters2026-01-10text/htmlen-USNature as a Source of Inspiration for the Supernatural: The Mediterranean Moray and Serpentine Sea Monsters2026-01-102026TWOProject MUSE®1505462026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-10The Legend of the Serra Revisited: Identifying the Composite Creature
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979703
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In the Middle Ages, aquatic landscapes were pictured as populated with monsters. Aquatic monstrosities appeared in many artistic and literary sources, from carvings decorating the interiors and exteriors of churches to maps, and from moralizing stories about animals to scientific treatises.1 Scholars such as Thomas of Cantimpré and Vincent of Beauvais even employed a separate category of sea creatures, “marine monsters,” in their works.2 The category of marine monsters stayed a part of pre-Linnean taxonomies in the early modern period as well, as seen in Olaus Magnus’s Description of the Northern Peoples.In this article I investigate medieval representations of one of the most prominent aquatic monsters featured in
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562/image/coversmallThe Legend of the Serra Revisited: Identifying the Composite Creature2026-01-10text/htmlen-USThe Legend of the Serra Revisited: Identifying the Composite Creature2026-01-102026TWOProject MUSE®1471422026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-10The Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition ed. by Richard Raiswell, Michelle D. Brock, and David R. Winter (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979704
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The last two decades have witnessed a significant increase of scholarly interest in the Christian Devil. Of course, there has long been a strong fascination with this subject matter throughout twentieth-century scholarship—J. B. Russell’s five-volume history (1977–1988) being the standout—yet the twenty-first century has already produced a succession of high-quality single-authored and edited volumes on the Devil, the latter including The Devil in Society in Premodern Europe (2012, ed. R. Raiswell with P. Dendle), Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period (2018, ed. M. D. Brock, R. Raiswell, and D. R. Winter), The Medieval Devil: A Reader (2020, ed. R. Raiswell and D. R. Winter), and The Science of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562/image/coversmallThe Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition ed. by Richard Raiswell, Michelle D. Brock, and David R. Winter (review)2026-01-10text/htmlen-USThe Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition ed. by Richard Raiswell, Michelle D. Brock, and David R. Winter (review)2026-01-102026TWOProject MUSE®168122026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-10Werewolf Legends ed. by Willem de Blécourt and Mirjam Mencej (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979705
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Werewolf Legends critically assesses the concept of the werewolf throughout Europe in the modern period. Co-editor de Blécourt, who has published extensively on werewolf legends, authors three of the fourteen chapters; Mencej, a specialist in vernacular religion and witchcraft, authors one. In chapter 1, “Werewolf Legends: False, Fabricated or Altogether Absent,” de Blécourt introduces the volume by explicitly foregrounding the work in the discipline of folkloristics, explaining disciplinary definitions of the concept of legend and then developing a painstaking analysis of “false and fabricated” werewolf legends, noting their adaptation in non-legend sources such as fairy tales, demonological examples, and literary
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/562/image/coversmallWerewolf Legends ed. by Willem de Blécourt and Mirjam Mencej (review)2026-01-10text/htmlen-USWerewolf Legends ed. by Willem de Blécourt and Mirjam Mencej (review)2026-01-102026TWOProject MUSE®133742026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-10